All the usual disclaimers apply. Thanks to Amber39 and KaiserMonkey for their appreciative reviews of the first part.

If you haven't read my previous work in this category (shame on you if you haven't) I'll give you a brief resume. Lucius Malfoy's somewhat more enlightened brother Alexis leaves the family seat under acrimonious circumstances, marrys his normal-born girlfriend, and teaches his two children their magical skills at home. However, in their sixth year the Ministry finds out and puts a stop to this, packing them off to Hogwarts.

The slightly older of the two children, Richard Malone, is our dry-humoured and slightly cynical narrator. By the Christmas holidays he has defused his rivalry with cousin Draco, become a Beater for Gryffindor, and been an amused observer as his sister successfully wooes Hermione Grainger. Vernon Dursley also suffers a brain haemorrage when it is revealed that Alex Malone is in fact a wizard.

We resume our tale half a school year after 'Friends and Enemies...', just into the summer holidays. Harry is now a semi-permanent member of the Malone household, and incidentally is also attending the same kickboxing class as Rick. Dudley hasn't dared try anything on that front. Vernon is gradually recovering from his stroke, and remains his usual pleasant self. Ditto Petunia. Draco is about to get his first taste of what being a Death Eater will mean...

Draco stared at his father, horror-struck. "Well, get on with it, boy!" Lucius ordered. "You know how to use the Cruciacus, don't you?" The other, fully initiated Death Eaters glared behind their masks. They hadn't been at all pleased with Lucius when he'd insisted upon bringing his son along, 'to see if he's got what it takes BEFORE we go through all that rigmarole with the Dark Mark.' Having him bottle out on a real job would have been inconvenient, but so was looking out for a semi-incompetent teenager. Fortunately this mission wasn't especially complicated, though it was of considerable importance.

The family cowered behind the father, an unimpressive man who could only walk on crutches. His wife merely made pathetic noises.

"Look," he said in a reasonable tone which obviously didn't come naturally, "how about I tell you where you can find the boy, and then you don't have to horribly torture us all to death. Is that a mutually acceptable arrangement?"

"Except for the fact that I happen to like horribly torturing people to death, of course," Lucius replied conversationally. "Especially Muggles."

"Then why make the kid do it?" enquired the youngest of the family, an excessively fat kid with ridiculously styled blonde hair. "I mean, I can identify with you about the appeal of torturing people, so why not have all the fun yourself? He doesn't look too fussed, you see."

Lucius was more than somewhat impressed; the lad was perceptive enough to realise that he was going to die anyway, and was displaying unexpected reserves of courage. He felt that at the very least he might as well give him an honest answer.

"It's a sort of rite of passage," he explained. "I wanted to find out..."

"...If I'd got the bollocks," Draco finished. His father rolled his eyes.

"I was going to use a somewhat less vulgar expression, but that's a fair summation." His tone became impatient. "Well, HAVE you got them, boy? Get on with it!"

Draco raised his wand, trying not to look as hesitant as he felt. "Don't worry lad, it's never easy the first time," one of the others said helpfully. //Oh well, here goes, even if it means I don't have a chance in hell with Ginny now...//

Ginny's face came back to him, sweet, innocent... He could hear her, the last thing she said to him: "If you have to join the Dark side, do it as a choice YOU made. Don't do it just because your father tells you to." //OK Ginny, I won't, God help me!//

Draco whirled around. "Stupefy!" he yelled, sending the others flying.

"Draco, what the bloody hell are you- Ack!" Lucius caught the man's crutch alongside his head, sending him flying against the wall with a sickening crunch.

Draco turned and ran, muttering "Idiot, idiot, IDIOT!" to himself. Why have an attack of conscience NOW? He was very probably going to die, and in an unpleasant fashion. The Boss was not going to be best pleased when he heard about this. //Ginny had better be impressed after this evening's events,// he told himself.

A car screeched to a stop, and several Aurors exited it at speed. One of them neatly tripped Draco, and held him at wandpoint. "Hold it, sunbeam- hey, he's just a kid!" Draco found this rather riling, but decided against making an issue of it right now.

Another Auror appeared. "Five unconscious Death Eaters, three very scared people who are apparently close relatives of none other than Harry Potter, and nobody dead. Makes a nice change, really."

"I'm glad they're still alive," remarked the driver of the car, a woman. "If anybody's going to kill those three, it ought to be Harry."

"I heard that!" Vernon Dursley roared, waving his crutches. "If it wasn't for my hypertension I'd-" The first Auror shattered one of his garden gnomes with a burst of magical lightning, and he shut up. Draco took this opportunity to leg it, disappearing into the evening twilight before anybody could stop him.

Meanwhile, a somewhat difficult conversation was taking place in the Malone household.

"It's not the fact that you Apparated in my living room while we were watching the Quidditch match, triggering the burglar alarm and permanently alienating my next door neighbours, who had to listen to it for the next eight hours," Dad blandly informed a wholly unrepentant Fred and George Weasley. "It's not even the fact that you nailed all of Rick and Harry's bedroom furniture to their respective ceilings, at an estimated cost to repair of several hundred pounds. No, gentlemen," he growled, "it's the official ministry visit which I recieved asking me to explain why I permitted my kids to use magic at home now that they'd put a stop to home schooling. Do you have ANY idea how long it took me to convince them to go away?"

Harry was trying not to laugh, but I was distinctly unamused. My furniture had fallen down, causing the destruction of my television and nearly braining the family cat, Mistopheles.

"Look, we'll pay for the furniture and everything, and we're sorry about the mess," said Fred... or was it George?

"And upsetting the people next door," the other one replied. Okay, okay. Look, even their mother gets confused sometimes.

Further conversation was curtailed by the roughly simultaneous arrival, by Floo powder, of Ginny Weasley and Ms Tonks. They collided in midair and landed in a heap. Molly wouldn't have approved of her daughter's language, and I don't suppose Nymphadora's mum would have approved of HERS, either. Did I spell that right, by the way? Gave my word processor's spelling checker a headfit, I can tell you.

"What the hell just happened?" I enquired mildly, as they finally disentangled themselves.

"Draco was-!"

"Malfoy just-!"

"His father was-!"

"One at a time, for Christ's sake!" Dad yelled over them both. Finally, we got the circumstances straightened out. Ginny had apparently raced here by Floo after a near-hysterical Draco had called her at home, knowing nobody else to call, and swearing blind that he'd done nothing wrong; rather the contrary according to Tonks. She hadn't been able to convince him that he was being regarded as a witness rather than an accessory, and that Vernon Dursley had even gone so far as to say 'Thank you' for his efforts. Both had expected him to turn up at our house, though what sort of reception he anticipated I've no idea.

Frantic hammering on the door (he'd probably never seen an electronic doorbell) announced that we were about to find out.

I opened the door, to find a dishevelled and hyperventilating Malfoy on the doorstep. "Come on in," I told him. "Ginny and Tonks just turned up, and they both say you're the hero of the hour, though doing the Crucaicus on the Dursleys seems like a worthy cause."

"But I'm damned if I'm going to let anybody else do it but me!" Harry called from the kitchen. Draco shared a look with Tonks, and they both laughed. We got his version of events in detail over several cups of coffee which I absolutely did not enhance with the cheap whiskey Dad uses for making hot toddies. You know what I'm driving at, I'm sure.

"I just panicked, I suppose. Aurors arrest Malfoys on sight," Draco explained.

"That we do," Tonks conceeded, "on the principle that they're almost always guilty of SOMETHING. This is the first time we've tried to arrest one that's been innocent of anything, actually, Alex here included."

"Being drunk and disorderly outside the Leaky Cauldron aged seventeen," Dad explained. "Are you familiar with the phrase 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone', Nypho?"

"We were all seventeen at some stage," she replied. "I've been told I'm not a pretty sight when I'm drunk." There was a thoughtful pause while we contemplated the experience of getting sloshed with a Metamorphagus. Plenty of potential for amusing moments there, especially if one is in posession of a camera. I decided to have a few quiet words about that with Remus next time I saw him. He'd set off to find somewhere he could turn into a raging beast once a month without anybody taking much notice, but not in the wizarding world where people knew about werewolves. It goes without saying that he was currently renting an apartment in Manhattan. (Author's note: see 'An English Werewolf in New York', which can be accessed via my Favourite Stories in my profile. I found it in Classics and loved it so I figured I'd try and fit it into the canon.)

"So, what do we do now? He can't stay here indefinitely, that's for certain. I wouldn't be surprised if the Death Eaters were watching this place," Dad explained. "Lucius always was a cautious sort."

"Is he REALLY going to send a heavy mob after his own son?" asked Harry.

"Count on it," Draco replied bitterly. "Father'd probably Avada Kedavara the crap out of me personally. Think of him as an older version of me, but worse."

"HellFIRE!"

"The Burrow," Ginny suggested. "At least for a while. Even the Dark Lord's bright enough not to try and blow up the new Minister of Magic." Arthur Weasely had taken over at Dumbledore's insistence, after Fudge had been offered honourable retirement or a vote of no confidence and the sack, to his considerable alarm and surprise. After a somewhat shaky start, he had settled in well, and made several changes that had pleased the anti-pureblood faction no end. A major shakeup of several subdepartments was in progress, several of the dafter laws had been relaxed, and the Aurors were getting a massive pay rise. So was Arthur, come to that; they'd never have to buy secondhand again as long as they lived.

Molly had been well chuffed, until Arthur had Percy fired. That nearly caused divorce proceedings, until Arthur produced evidence of Percy fiddling his expenses and pinching stationery, neatly diverting the approaching matrimonial wrath to a more deserving subject.

"What about this camping trip to Romania with Charlie?" Harry suggested. Ah, yes! Four weeks in the wilderness, far from civilisation or Dark Magic. Fantastic!

Persuading the Granger, Brown and Chang families to allow their representatives to participate hadn't been easy, but the Lovegoods had been quite enthusiastic about the whole idea. The first time I'd encountered them I'd been thouroughly nervous... no, I tell a lie- I was bloody terrified. But they'd been a lot less judgemental than I'd expected- actually, I suspect they were secretly relieved that Luna was showing signs of being 'normal', as if she gave a damn for normality. That's a side issue, however.

"Why not? Since Seamus and I had that big row we've had an extra place anyway."

"Erm..." Harry began, visions of everybody else's reactions swimming before his eyes.

"You have a better idea?" I cut in.

At this point Mum and Fran arrived home from their day of girls-only shopping, giggling hysterically. Apparently a bunch of builders had wolf-whistled at one or both of them (don't even go there, OK?) and Fran had audibly remarked, "And you wonder why I'm gay," leaving the builders unable to frame a suitable reply. I pictured this with a certain amount of amusement.

They were immediately fussing over Draco in a truly embarassing fashion, and I lent a hand in extricating him to the Burrow.

"I'll handle Mum. Harry, can you sell Ron on this?" Ginny said, determination setting in. Fred and George had discreetly disapparated to a safe distance at some stage in the proceedings.

"I'll have a go," he promised. "Rick, do you mind coming along to help me pull them off one another?" Or Ron off him, I supposed, nodding my assent.

* * *

"MALFOY?" Ron nearly exploded. "Oh, Merlin. That Seamus git was bad enough, but Ginny's really lost it now."

"Did I even suggest any kind of romantic relationship? Not that it's your business who your sister chooses to go out with anyway," I replied, feeling my temper starting to fray.

"Look," Harry interjected before Ron could completely lose it and sieze me by the throat, "if there was anywhere else we could send Draco where he wasn't going to be horribly tortured to death he'd be there. And bastard that he was for the last four years, he doesn't deserve the Cruciacus curse."

"What about Grimmauld Place?" You could tell from Ron's face that he didn't entirely agree with Harry on that last point.

"That safehouse was burned after all that business at the Ministry. Besides, would you make even Draco Malfoy share a house with Sirius Black's mother?" I pointed out.

"I had to for a couple of days," Draco remarked, passing Ron's room. "Father bought the place not long after all that stuff at the Ministry. Why, I can't imagine, though I suppose it'd be something to do with not wanting the seat of a respected pureblood family to go to ruin. That's the kind of crap he generally comes up with."

Ginny followed. "Get used to him, Ron. He's coming with us to Romania, like it or not, and you're to make an effort to get along with him. Otherwise you will be dealing with me."

"God, she's like her mother sometimes," I said ruefully, shaking my head. "Come on, let's go and have a drink."